Archive for December, 2017

The P.C. brigade has invaded the British forces; Notices have gone up at a military academy advising the use of gender-neutral words to comply with “modern sentiments”. “They include saying “human resources” instead of “manpower” and “humanity” as opposed to “mankind”.” Shouldn’t it be; “hu resources” and “huity” respectively? I’d imagine that women who’ve been abused or feel undervalued or disrespected would be more offended by the way they are TREATED rather than the traditional language which is used. As for the word “chaps”, any civilised organisation would address a mix-gender group with “ladies and gentlemen” as they always have.

In ancient Greek legend, son of Theiodamas (king of the Dryopians in Thessaly), favourite and companion of Heracles on the Argonautic expedition. Having gone ashore at Cios in Mysia to fetch water, he was dragged down by the nymphs of the spring in which he dipped his pitcher. Heracles sought him in vain; afterward, in memory of Heracles’ threat to ravage the land if Hylas was not found, the inhabitants of Cios each year on a stated day roamed the mountains, shouting aloud for Hylas. The story was a favourite of Hellenistic Greek poets, such as Apollonius of Rhodes, Theocritus, and Nicander, and was also told by the Latin elegist Propertius.

“Space constraints are one reason, but curatorial choices also play a role. “Would we call these choices “censorship”?”

They could be; It may be better to store all the artworks in a computer where the works for a display could be randomly selected by the computer. This would also give “not worthy” pieces a chance to see the light of day. Oh, and the reason why the photo was taken down and the painting not was probably because the photo was of a real child and the painting just a fantasy. [Pyethon]

Whatever ones’ opinion of Donald Trump is, as democratically elected president of the United States he should be afforded the same reception as previous presidents. To deny him this on the grounds of possible social unrest is submitting to bullying. Just because we invite him to meet the Queen with all the pomp and ceremony doesn’t mean that we endorse his views.

A tranquil and beautiful part of the English Lake District could become a “gravy train” for a commercial company. “Treetop Trek Ltd” wants to string zip wires over the lake Thirlmere as part of an “activity hub”. The planning application is currently being processed.

Newspapers have been blamed for the vitriolic reaction from social media towards those M.P.s who defeated the government over Brexit.
Newspapers have been around long before the Internet was even conceived and their existence has played a major role in British democracy. It’s not up to journalism to change its tune but for social media to put its house in order.

How demeaning to see Britain grovelling to the E.U. mandarins to come to a trade deal. Apparently our homework is now good enough and we can now go out to play. I know that the “divorce” is complicated and people’s wealth and livelihoods are at stake but is it worth losing our dignity. No one really knows if we would be better or worse off without a deal. In the short term I suspect that there would be job losses and standards of living would fall but we would have recovered from that and retained our self respect.

The E.U. proposes to sanction the U.K. if it breaks the rules of the transition agreement. This period is intended to smooth the transition from our current trading arrangements with the E.U. and those which we want to sign with other countries. However if these new conditions prevent the U.K. from preparing for this there doesn’t seem to be much point in it; we might as well reconsider the trade deal and leave next year. A lot of countries in the E.U. have now become disenchanted with the whole project and do not want to lose any more sovereignty and some are courting a similar exit. It may be better for the E.U. to re-think the whole idea and consider something similar to the original “common market” model (Treaty of Rome 1957).